Suggestions to deal with hotwheels guys

M

Meme

Joined
Jun 11, 2022
Messages
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Lately I've been really annoyed and feel harassed by those hotwheels guys. They are the first ones waiting for the store to open so they can come in. They always demand to know if we have it in the back room, up to the point we're not located in backroom cause they've been asking other dept tms to pull for them while the floor is full. Now those guys got the nerve to dig through my uboat just to look for hotwheels. I couldn't say anything back but to let them. One guy even stood there waiting for me to bring out another uboat so he can go through it again with his hunting
Any suggestions of what should I do or say to stop this? Thank you so much kind people
 
This is how we used to do this back in the day: The Hot Wheels were filled in and any over stock or empty boxes were taken off the floor before store opening. Guests requesting Hot Wheels were told that to be fair to all guests collectible items were not pulled from the back for individual guests, but were only filled in when they came out in pulls. There used to be signs stating that policy all over the toy department, and the policy was actually adhered to. I don’t know what happened with that policy, but I haven’t seen those signs in years. Sometimes it was easier and faster to just say there were no more in back!😁
Some of our Hot Wheels guys were ok, didn’t make a fuss or a mess, but there was this one guy who was a real PITA. He came in at opening practically every day and made a big scene. The TM in toys told him no, a TL, in this case, me, told him no, and he just kept on, so the STL (SD now) came out and had a little chat with him. End of problem. And the kicker was Mr. Big Scene Hot Wheels guy was a former employee. In our store.


Hardlinesmaster said:
tell your tl about the issue. you touch my uboat & you are kicked out.
Click to expand...
^This 100%. Your leadership should be able to help you out so you don’t feel threatened by aggressive guests. Good luck!
 
we have those too that came in right at 7 and wanted a specific one . I would tell them they get what they see on the floor our wave push was already done in toys and most likely it went to the off-site . They can come back later on and check if they got pulled but off-site doesn’t come back to the store until 10 😝
 
They used to come with big knives as well, going through all the hot wheels casepacks.

We stopped taking Hot Wheels out of the back room until store was closed. Problem solved for closing anyway.

They used to have foot races on opening until they were told they'd be trespassed if it kept up. It stopped.

Yes, these are grown ass older men, 40-50+ easily.
 
And I thought ours were fanatical.

Ours are actually kinda polite tho. They'll see if you are going to put up a box of Hot Wheels and literally will work the box for you (they know the correct spots and everything) back in Toys just so they can look through it. When I worked back there I would just let it happen because the deadlines were and still are insane on Uboats
 
And I thought we had the monopoly on screwballs. WTF do these imbeciles do with these toys and how much do they sell for?
 
One of our hot wheels guys scans the 99 cents cars (maybe they are 1.19 now) when he is supposed to scan a more expensive one. Then he comes and returns the cheap ones. I haven't seen him recently. Maybe AP built up a high enough of a case to stop that guy from coming to our store.
 
We put 1 box of hot wheels on the salesfloor. we do not and will not go and grab a new box for them to scavenge and look for whatever specific one they want. As simple as that. We also say "New merchandise will be placed overnight"
My first experience with them was in 2020 and it was this random guy. Asking if we had some in the back. I said yeah but i noticed something was super weird about it. 300 on hand but 2 back stocked?

The day was Christmas eve eve and there was no one in toys for some reason and tech was ofc booming. So he asked me if i can go out and bring it and i realized that he meant like a bin to which i said no.
He asked to speak to a manager and left before the closing tl could come and tell him no lol.
 
We only had one "hot wheels guy" at our store. He was in his 40s, possibly older 50s, just like the rest of the hot wheels guys you all deal with. Anyway, he'd often go to the toy aisle and destroy the entire section of hot wheels to the point where ALL of the ones he didn't want would be off the peghooks and on the floor. He was banned from the store, but not for the reason y'all probably think. Instead, he was banned because he'd try to steal vacuums every single time they were put out onto the floor-
 
Hotwheelers are typically resellers and less likely to be turbodweebs. For them it's a hustle and I can get behind that (for it is written, "thou shalt secure the bag by any means necessary.") Hotwheelers are also occasionally capable of understanding that being chill, polite and patient is in their best interest and sometimes (depending on the store) can even land them "regular guest" perks that MIGHT even have TMs or TLs giving them first pickerinos through Hotwheels boxes if they dip in early enough. Keywords: "Can you [please] check in the back for Hotwheels?", "That's okay, I understand"

Enter the thrice-accursed Funko accumulators who have only one redeeming quality, which is that they fucking stink so bad that you can smell them pulling up to the store in their mom's car and you know exactly when to dip off the salesfloor for an extra paid break because BryBry ain't paying you enough for that shit. Funkos are almost never a hustle but instead a cost sink for turbodweebs for whom giving wads of cash to megacorporations in exchange for pseudo-collectible dweebshit is their only fetish that somehow doesn't involve Japanese cartoons and tentacles, or at least not directly so. Keywords: DC, Marvel, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo, My Little Pony, hentai, Reddit karma, "son you need to get a job and move out, I'm retiring next year"
 
I have no problem with collectors as a whole and I'm not going to be too judgy about what people like, because goodness knows I've spent plenty on several collections over the years - Star Wars trading cards, stuffed cats, MAC Lipglass, gargoyles, nutcrackers, drag queen t shirts - my latest is Vera Bradley purses. And not just the purses, you have to get the matching wallets and cosmetic bags too, of course. So yeah, no judgement here.

But they should not be assholes about it, is all. Collect all the Hot Wheels cars and Funko Pops and fabric birds and Squishmallows you want - just be cool, man.
 
I'm in that boat too. Once we started making sure all the counts on hot wheels were good and everything was on the floor, we would consistently sell a box by the next truck and receive another box. Trying to micromanage the supply and sticking it to the collectors coming in was just more hassle than it was worth. Honestly by just letting them sell and providing for the guest, we had more to provide the next time
 

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